Surprises
by Thanfiction
Summary: He expected there to be a catch in the deal, but there were still a few surprises on the way out of Purgatory.


His first sign things were about to get interesting was when a woman in a prim grey suit appeared all neat and tidy as his grandmother's kitchen halfway up a tree. Looked rather like a Leviathan, but she didn't smell of blood. Didn't smell of anything, in fact, like she wasn't even there, and there hadn't been such a thing as a someone with no smell at all since he'd turned…and honest enough maybe before. She told him there was a human in Purgatory.

Of course there was a human in Purgatory. He knew that. Everyone knew that by now. He filled her in on that point, throwing in that the human's name was Winchester and word was it suited the hell outta him when it came to things that were deadly on the business end. Some dumb bastards with scores to settle or just plain balls bigger than their brains had even tried to take him on. Sometimes, folk'd found pieces after. Most times not.

Hell yeah there was a human in Purgatory, and he was exactly as far away from one Benjamin Ambrose Lafitte as the latter could manage. Except that wasn't what suit woman wanted. She was there for a deal, and when she swore she wasn't a demon, he was surprised to find he believed her. Said all he had to do was find the human, help the human find his companion, and follow the river for forty days.

Well and good, of course, but being turned into a fang wasn't the same as being dropped on your head. His end of the deal would have to be damned good to get him anywhere near Winchester…but what she offered him was better than good. It was freedom, tied up neat and tidy with a spell and a promise and a cherry on top that if he died sincerely trying, he'd still get a ticket out of there in an upward direction.

He signed. Right on the dotted line with the pretty gold pen and it's razor tip that slid so easy into the vein for blood he scarce felt the sting. Then she was gone, and it was in his hands. A way out. Goddamn.

Finding Winchester'd been easy. All he'd had to do was follow his nose; it was like being downwind of a pig farm as hard as he'd fought and as little as he'd bathed and as long as it had been since that taste had sweetened Benny's lips. Not getting iced on sight had been a little harder, but he'd timed it well, following out of sight until he'd had an opportunity to play the cavalry and make his offer. He'd decided to be up front about it. There'd been nothing in the contract to say he had to lie, only that he couldn't mention her, and he had about the sweetiepie win you over charm of a butcher's block. On his good days.

He was younger than Benny expected. Maybe 30, 35, and a whole load better looking, with kind of an Errol Flynn, Cary Grant thing going on that made him half wonder if he wasn't returning suit woman's runaway lover. Not his business if he was, of course. And once they got past the whole Me Heap Good Fang, Kemosabe bit, he turned out to be a pretty decent kid. Likeable, even. The kind of fellow if he'd known sixty years ago, he'd have bought a round and whoopsie daisy broke his own and bled in the booze to sign a new shipmate.

Winchester had a first name, it turned out; Dean. Had a brother too up topside he'd been taking care of since he was just a kid, and the stories he had…hot damn, and Benny thought he'd been around the block. This son of a bitch had been to hell and back. Literally. And where decent kid turned into damned fine man turned into calling him "friend" and meaning it turned into calling him "brother" and meaning that too, he wasn't even sure. When the days and nights and months bled into each other in real blood, how the hell could you even know?

And always, always looking for the angel. Out without the angel was non-fucking negotiable. That'd been item one. Well, item two. Item one had been a simpler negotiation involving extra teeth equalling no head in a totally reasonable equation that he was more than happy to agree to, provided Winchester understood that Hunters with stupid ideas worked out more or less the same in reverse.

But there was no even thinking on leaving without the angel. Castiel, but only the first time. Cass after that, but only twice. Then just "the angel," "hot wings," "twister", "rainman." Half dozen other things that bled out his mouth. Angel'd come here with him, he said, then kissed off as soon as the dogs got nosy, and yeah, Dean swore he was the genuine feathers-and-halo article, but he did a damned fine clam impersonation beyond that point. Still, he wasn't the first man Benny'd known with a Past in a capital P and he recognized the holes in the other stories. The "someone" who helped and the sudden jump of "we figured a way out" and the "guy" who was with them. Who turned on them. Holes in the stories that were kinda coincidentally shaped with wings. Not that he called him on it.

Mama didn't raise no fool.

By the time they got a lead on the angel, Benny thought he'd reckoned things out fairly well. So a lot of things took him by a lot of surprise. For one, he'd been expecting an angel. Proper. Like they had in the statues and the stained glass at Our Lady of Mount Caramel, all white robes and white wings and shining light and flaming sword. Hella warrior, obviously, from the shape of the holes in those stories, and wasn't that half the reason he hadn't put up much fuss about the hunt?

But here was this scrawny and Jesus Christ filthy little bearded bastard in a trench coat what looked like he was gonna beg for spare change and drink it cheap under the pier. This was the angel? The one Dean'd said so much in what he didn't say about, the one he'd prayed to when he thought Benny couldn't hear with a need like a man gone overboard calling to the Virgin above the scream of the wind? The one he'd begged to, sworn to, plead to and sobbed to and sometimes done all that in just a barely whispered "Cas…buddy…please…" deep under his breath?

And then came the second surprise, because when Dean had made that kind of bee line, he'd winced, just knowing that if this angel were luckier than a three legged Derby winner he'd get a face full of fist. What happened hadn't even been on the list, and he'd have lost three months wages betting he'd ever see it's like, because Dean didn't just hug him, he threw himself on the startled-looking hobo, both arms around his shoulders and face in his neck and grinning to near split his face like a…

Well goddamn.

And not even a chance to recover before the angel's eyes flicked up and locked his, and they weren't just too blue - scary blue with a kind of inside light for half a heartbeat - he knew them. All at once and somehow yet all along, and he took a step back, shoulders pulling tight and his fist clenching on his own weapon as he reeled under the sudden remembering.

Raphael. Crowley. Leviathan. Melting flesh and burning blood. Scraps of memories from the edges of the crush. Black Sabbath in a Chevy Impala. Kite bright in a blue sky. Green eyes gold across a ring of flame. Wings burned dark in tender grass.

THAT angel.

Holy shit.

Dean was introducing them now and didn't notice that Benny barely kept up his side of the bargain. He was still flying high, still beaming too big and white against all the muck and blood, and oh, Castiel knew Benny knew now because he wouldn't keep eye contact. Not with him, not with Dean, not with nobody, and who'd have thought an angel could be guilty as sin, but wasn't it a day just full of surprises.

He'd realize later that was the exact moment "brother" became "little brother" with a heaping side of "don't you dare break his heart." Because add a little gravy to that dish of well-I-never, the angel wasn't the only one whose eyes could unpack a whole lot of everything, and even if Dean didn't realize it himself, Benny knew all too well that there was nothing set you up for hurt like being in love.


End file.
